Where you stay?

It snowed in Louisiana this week and down here on Fish River where I’m staying it’s so cold the dogs chase their tails just to keep ’em from freezing. How is it at your house?

Speaking of staying, I am reminded of a conversation I had one day when I first moved off yonder to North Carolina. A co-worker was trying to explain to me the difference between a southerner from North Carolina and one from Alabama. “Around these parts people will say, ‘Where you stay?’ instead of asking ‘Where do you live?'”

Out in Oregon, if I asked somebody where they stayed they might mistake me for being nosy and tell me to mind my own business. People in Oregon think whose bed they sleep in is their own business.

But I can recall Granny Leona asking people where they were staying. Perhaps it’s an Eastern Southern thing as opposed to a Western Southern thing, but I’ve been asked that a time or two myself over the years, so it can’t just be a North Carolina phrase.

Still, I chuckled when I came across a scripture that seems to me is surely proof that David had southern roots:

“But the Lord was my stay.” Psalm 18: 18

The next time somebody asks me where I stay, I’m going to answer I stay with God.